


The Handsome Doughboy

by Loudest_Cricket



Series: Dulce et Decorum Est [1]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Bunty is up to something, Emotional Eating, F/M, Mostly nonsense, Movie 2: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald Spoilers, Talking, Tea Drinking, Trench Warfare, Violence eventually, angry bowtruckles, angry glances, criminal distraction, i'll abandon this like the trash heap i am, if im not careful, mostly this is just setup, or you know, probably ooc in the worst way, something rattling around in my brain, the tags will be longer than the entry, this will eventually have historically inspired OCs, wwi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-25 10:40:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16659649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loudest_Cricket/pseuds/Loudest_Cricket
Summary: Long before a certain blond bombshell, Jacob Kowalski found himself among other kinds.





	1. An Introduction

     He arrived at the front too late to be a _doughboy*_ , technically, but he found he didn’t mind the nickname. He _was_ soft, after all. He came to own it. It made him think of his grandmother, her love of baking, and his love of her paczki. Even trimmed up from boot camp, Jacob “Doughboy” Kowalski was still no bean pole; his love of French pastries kept him a little rounder than regulation. But he liked himself, all-in-all. Liked his sideways grin and the little duck curl that dropped over his forehead. So, he smiled easy and found, quite without trying, he was always _on the make*_. The French girls just ate him up. He blushed deeply when they said his name. They’d blush on the rare occasion when Jacob would steal a kiss.

     But those were lighthearted, far-away moments. Little more, now, than braggadocious stories shared in miserable huddled circles of wet and rotting canvas. Just trying to pass the time, gas-mask close at hand. Jacobs’ duck curls and mustache were hacked back to his skull - an effort to combat _des totos*_. Soldiers boots barely more than mobile mud puddles, Jacob’s were as worse for the wear. Trenches weren’t for heroes. Which was just as well, he’d never cut a heroic figure anyway. Jacob was a man: a little too kindhearted for war, a little too soft to relish the colorful language of death.

     But he was no coward.

 

 

 

doughboy: "U.S. service members in World War I (1914-18) came to be dubbed doughboys—the term most typically was used to refer to troops deployed to Europe as part of the American Expeditionary Forces"

on the make: 20's slang for flirting

des totos: French WWI slang for lice and fleas

(I'll post sources for language and war details if there's interest.)


	2. Eating His Feelings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newt's house, morning after.

     It wasn’t raining. Jacob stood at a window in the warm, friendly home looking out at a shockingly blue English sky. Improbably blue.

     “ –perius curse, of course.” Someone was speaking from some unknowable distance. Jacob just wasn’t fit for listening. He brought a flowery cup to his lips to find dregs, his biscuits evidenced only by crumbs. He’d taken up a collection since they had arrived in the small hours the night before. Since then, Jacob had acquired 5 tea cups, 4 saucers covered in crumbs and jam, 6 sticky doilies, and 2 cloth napkin. The wide window sill was a riot of greasy decorative paper and leaning porcelain.

     When the group apparated back to Newts’, Bunty had been there to receive them. Heaven knows what transpired for her to hear of the confrontation and have a kettle on by the time they arrived.

     “I’m not so sure.” Newt intoned quietly, carefully. He suspected Jacob hadn’t slept and found, to his gentle surprise, that he completely understood the behavior. The sound of Newt’s morning cup finding its saucer was delicate – suddenly out of place. Jacob had turned from the window. Newt met his gaze and didn’t look away. Tina missed the exchange, too furious, too lost in her feelings and shouting at tinned beans.

     “Queenie is a lot of things.” She faltered for a moment, tears wetting the corners of her eyes. “But she isn’t – she wouldn’t…” Jacob shifted his focus to Tina, his gaze softening a little.

     “Hey.” He cracked a wide smile. “We can’t know what she’s thinking. That’s her job, remember?” He chuckled and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “She’s not crazy.”


	3. O'Ryan's Roughnecks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Preparation before Jacob crosses The Pond

     The 27th Infantry Division of the Army National Guard _was_ New York. The first-born, the dream for the future – and it was headed to war. Or rather, to boot camp: Camp Wadsworth, Spartanburg, South Carolina and then to war. A titanic sendoff started at 10:00am on August 30th, 1917, down 5th Avenue. 25,000 Guardsmen marched in the street, waving their goodbyes to hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers lined along a five mile stretch. It took five hours for the parade to pass by. Jacob Kowalski practically floated, flanked by his closest friends, until midafternoon; scarcely noticing the city’s heat or the distance for the frantic cheering and the near constant rain of bubblegum and cigarettes – the young, untested soldiers could think of no better farewell. They all looked fine in their drab cotton and wool, polished boots and buttons, helmets still unmarred.

     Camp was a dream. Well, sort of. The kind of dream whose music was the regimented cycle of reveille and retreat, where you worked harder than you ever imagined you could, falling short again and again as paunchy rag-tag failures until exertion (and muscle memory) and the help of a band of newly made brothers brought success. And on Friday night, everyone had an eye out for a new baby. Jacob wasn’t a serial romancer, exactly, he’d loved his mother and his grandmother enough to remember that women weren’t ornaments. That said, his Friday night dance card was respectably – and respectfully – full.

     September to April was a whirl of drills and mess calls that passed for conditioning. In May, fit as they’d ever be, New York’s 27th crossed the pond and began the real training.


	4. Distracted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newt's thoughts swirl but something's missing.

     After the rally in the mausoleum, of course Newt knew Jacob was holding something back. That's what friends do; they can pick-up on the details.  _It is, isn't it?_ Newt thought. The tense, forlorn look on Jacob's face had only communicated so much. If Queenie was threatened or stolen away Jacob would not have stood by idly, of that Newt was certain.  _No, something else has happened, entirely._ After they narrowly escaped the spell meant to destroy Paris, it was Jacob's silence that confirmed Newt's suspicion. _Queenie went willingly._

     The remaining Aurors were much too busy to concern themselves with Newt - parole violator, or Jacob - muggle. If any repercussions were to arise from their being present at the rally it would be some time before they manifested. There was still investigating do to, after all. Finger-pointing. Grieving. _Yes, Grindlewald has murdered a dozen Aurors  - or more - and Credence and Queenie left with him willingly; the Ministry must be rather busy at the moment._ Newt fairly reeled from it all.

     Once he and Jacob arrived home, Newt gaped openly at Bunty. It was easy to do since she swished open the front door as he reached for the handle. She was ushering them inside, taking coats, and speaking in hushed tones. She knew. She knew everything. The coats sagged over her arm and as she opened the closet to hang them, Pickett clambered out from the bottom-most with a flurry of squeaks.

     "Oh don't be too mad, little one." She clucked and whisked the coats and Pickett away. The kettle had already boiled. Jacob slumped into a chair and Newt stood to one side, an observer in his own home. She fussed and fretted but Newt thank-you-no-thank-you'ed and asked after this and that animal. Bunty gave him a detailed update and then, somewhat abruptly, Newt went to bed.

     "There's nothing else to be done, then. Good night, Bunty." He gave Jacob a nod and was gone up the staircase.

*  *  *

     Newt sat on his bed: sliding off shoes, untying here, unbuttoning there, all the while distracted. Something gnawed at the edge of his thoughts, just out of reach. He huffed a breath and went over the events of the evening again. "And Grindlewald's murdered a dozen Aurors." _That was a close one, Theseus._ And suddenly what he'd been avoiding flooded in, threatening to overtake him.

_Tina._


End file.
